It’s impossible to ignore the impact that AI is having on utility management and the wastewater industry. Municipalities and contractors that have gotten their hands on the technology are already seeing returns, and while adoption may be gradual, forward-thinking decision-makers are educating themselves and their teams about where AI could fit into operation and maintenance workflows.

Integrating software for utilities is just one way the City of Raleigh, North Carolina, is prioritizing routine infrastructure inspections and maintenance activities. The stormwater division alone oversees 35,500 storm drains and 609 miles of pipes and culverts across the city, working to monitor and protect waterways and residential areas. As demand for maintenance increases, connected, cloud-driven technology helps the city effectively manage their assets.

Balancing the bandwidth of essential utilities can be like walking a tightrope. Employee salaries, equipment costs and a variety of operational expenses are just a few of the bandwidth constraints municipalities face. To mitigate these constraints, water utilities are turning to digital, cloud-based solutions that not only help cut down time per inspection but also eliminate various manual tasks. With the help of AI and integrated technology, utilities can do more with the employee bandwidth and equipment they already have.

Fast, simple work order creation is a key component of efficient sewer inspection workflows. WinCan makes it easy to create work orders on the fly from anywhere with our cloud-based inspection platform.

When Sewermatics hit the market in 2021, it changed the way inspection teams thought about condition assessment and coding. Suddenly, utilities could offload thousands of inspections for processing through WinCan’s AI engine, and results started turning major workflow backlogs into safely stored, ready-to-use sewer data. Entering 2023, Sewermatics AI scanning has come to WinCan’s cloud environment to deliver a sewer inspection experience that both expedites workflows and alleviates workloads.  

Geneva, Switzerland — capital of the Genève canton and the second most populated city in the country — is an iconic municipality situated on the southwestern border with France. It's here at the foot of the Alps that V. Guimet Fils SA works to provide maintenance and sanitation services to improve community health and protect the local environment. With more than 100 employees and 40 rapid intervention vehicles on standby, the Guimet Fils SA team boasts 24-hour service, conducting inspections and rehabilitation projects for the entire canton, an area of over 100 square miles (280 km²).

There are lots of opportunities for important sewer data to fall through the cracks in the journey from collection to analysis. If data is stored, transferred and shared in physical formats such as paper, it is at greater risk of loss than data stored in secure, digital environments. Digital data storage offers much more reliable containers for sewer data than physical methods. Not to mention, inspection software with NASSCO-certified coding modules helps ensure outgoing data aligns with the proper condition assessment standard. These and other factors can impact the accuracy, completeness and usability of your data.

Innovation in the wastewater industry is thriving. Sewer teams have begun to adopt technologies like AI and HD video capture to propel everyday workflows. Federal funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is enabling utilities across the country to address aging infrastructure. And sewer inspection teams of every size are transitioning to cloud-based data solutions that keep them connected and tracking projects more efficiently. The infrastructure world is changing fast, and 2023 is setting the stage for shifts in technology and workflow efficiency.

Collaboration brings professionals together to employ unique skills and experience for the good of the project at hand. In sewer inspection, collaboration is essential to keeping wastewater utilities, contractors and broader municipal departments connected and moving toward safer systems with cleaner communities.  

When your sewer team works closely with other municipal departments, it’s essential to have clear pathways from your inspection database to your asset database. WinCan’s integration with Cartegraph’s municipal asset management platform enables wastewater utilities to work closely with broader infrastructure teams to ensure that the city’s data is accurate, up-to-date and ready for analysis. Designed to help communities sync their sewer data and streamline their asset management workflows, Cartegraph is a natural companion for WinCan’s sewer inspection management capabilities. Our integration delivers a fast, complete data transfer that supports more flexible workflows and helps you get the most out of both solutions.